It’s important for entertainment professionals to make an active effort to sustain close personal relationships outside of the industry. In practice, the business’s culture of long hours, perennial drama, and compulsory socializing can make that difficult. But, in addition to being crucial to maintaining a healthy sense of perspective (in an industry that isn’t exactly known for its humility),1 drawing on the experiences and expertise of your civilian friends and family (typically, but not necessarily, in less glamorous professions) can give you fresh insight into your own work.
I emphasize “but not necessarily” in light of the exchange I had just last week with my old friend Tom — a local classmate/drinking buddy from my undergraduate study abroad semester at King’s College London — after he sent me a kind and congratulatory note about the first post in this series.
Tom literally negotiates ceasefires and other peace processes for a living. Working for or with various British and international agencies, he does the kind of diplomatic work that often can neither be confirmed nor denied (at least while it’s happening).2 I just read a sample chapter he wrote for a book proposal that begins with the sentence “The Aga Khan’s private jet is easily the best form of transport I’ve ever taken.”3 In other words, if you’re going to write about negotiation, it’s hard to imagine someone better than Tom to give you feedback.
Seeing what was on deck for the second post in the series, Tom casually asked, “I assume the ‘all negotiations is 3 negotiations’ is the substance-process-relationships triad?”
The substance-process-relationships triad is a foundational framework for analyzing, structuring, and executing deals that independently considers and optimizes around the “what,” the “how,” and the “who” of each negotiation. So, no, that wasn’t what I meant — I was referring to the mix of inward- and outward-facing dynamics in every negotiation. After I explained, Tom generously responded, “Oh that’s a much more interesting point. Glad I asked!”
While he is clearly putting his skills as a literal world-class diplomat to work here, I understand (and appreciate) Tom’s reaction — he had been teaching the substance-process-relationships triad in trainings he led for the British foreign service for years, while my catchy turn of phrase was (for him) a novel way to describe a negotiation dynamic that he recognized immediately, but didn’t previously have a shorthand for.
I, on the other hand, had been using that “every negotiation is three negotiations” line for years by the time I wrote it into my book, but probably hadn’t thought about the “substance-process-relationships triad” since law school — including, crucially, while writing the “academic framework” section of my chapter on negotiation. Because if I had, then I would have realized that my chapter was incomplete: it talked plenty about the first and third parts of the triad, but only in passing about the second: process.
Process is certainly less critical to your average entertainment deal than it is to, say, a mediated multilateral peace negotiation that is conducted in multiple languages to end hostilities between parties in a functionally trust-less environment. But while process rarely materially changes what the parties get in the deals I typically work on, it changes almost everything about how getting it feels. And quite often, what drives the parties’ eventual perceptions of a closed deal most is not the substance of the deal’s terms, but the experience of having made it (and, eventually, of having performed it).
In other words: you ignore process at your peril.
I won’t make that mistake again when I sit down to write The Business of Television’s third edition. And when it’s time to update my chapter on negotiation, I’ll start with these two new adages that speak to the no-longer-forgotten third of the triad.
Follow along as we work our way through the full text of Chapter 13 of The Business of Television (2nd ed. 2024): “On Negotiation”:
A. Why Is This Chapter Different from All Other Chapters?
B. But First, an Academic Framework
C. A Philosophy of Negotiation in Eight Adages
C.i. Negotiate, Don’t Haggle
C.ii. Every Negotiation Has Three “Teams”
C.iii. Every Negotiation Is Three Negotiations
C.iv. Pay People in the Currency That Is Most Valuable to Them (and Least Valuable to You)
C.v. Don’t Get Nasty; There Will Be Plenty of Time for That Later
C.vi. There’s No Such Thing as “Winning the Deal”
C.vii. Play the Long Game
C.viii. The Best Way to Negotiate Is as Yourself
D. Final Thoughts
Monday, August 31, 2026: New Material (Third Edition Preview)
C.ix. Don’t Always Open with Your Opening Offer
C.x. When In Doubt, Pick Up the Goddamn Phone
ix. Don’t Always Open with Your Opening Offer
Whoever first came up with the line “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”4 probably wasn’t talking about dealmaking at the time, but they could have been. Opening offers set a tone that influences every part of the negotiation that follows. That’s why they’re often too important to open the negotiation with.
One of the most common mistakes made by new negotiators is to kick off the process with an emailed offer. There are times when that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do — for example, when making extremely simple deals, in casual negotiations between unrepresented principals, between negotiators with significant shared experience and trust, or when working under significant time constraints. But it usually isn’t the right move.
More experienced dealmakers make almost every first offer on the phone. That’s a major upgrade — it smokes out any major misunderstandings between the parties as early as possible; creates an opportunity to modify the planned proposal or approach, based on realtime feedback, before fully committing to it; helps ensure that the offer is understood and received in the way hoped and intended; provides an immediate opportunity to gauge the other side’s reaction to the proposal (and to plan ahead accordingly); and generally helps get the negotiation off on a collaborative foot.5
But the savviest negotiators know that some deals require a so-called “pre-call” (and that the specific agenda for “the call before the call” depends on the circumstances). If this is the negotiators’ first deal together, it might just be a quick “Hi, nice to meet you.”6 If the other side might be walking into the deal with specific expectations or reservations, those can be identified. If the deal structure is complex or unorthodox or the business model is unfamiliar, they can be explained. If the terms of the deal are extremely context-dependent, the context can be introduced.
Whatever the circumstances, an opening call that doesn’t include an opening offer is worth your time if it ensures that you know everything you need to know to make an intelligent proposal (and that your counterpart knows everything they need to know to receive your proposal intelligently).
x. When in Doubt, Pick Up the Goddamn Phone
The last adage intentionally focuses your attention on how you kick off a negotiation; this one goes for everything that happens after that. Because in negotiation, it doesn’t matter what you said; it matters what the other side heard.7
Effective dealmakers take care to convey their arguments and explanations intelligibly and unambiguously8 — and to remain vigilant for any indication that they were not received as intended. Email is a convenient but flawed communication medium in which meaning is easily unknowingly garbled, tone is notoriously indecipherable, and intent that seems obvious to the writer is easily lost on the reader. The first of the aforementioned goals is challenging via email; the second is impossible.
Email can be valuable as a shorthand record and shareable reminder to the other side of what you’ve said. But when making a novel argument, delivering a position you know will be poorly received, looking to strike a very particular tone, or sharing essential or sensitive context, the “place” to actually say it is on the phone. That’s where any misunderstandings can be identified quickly, inadvertently ruffled feathers can be smoothed immediately, and both sides can feel free to say the things that would be irresponsible to put into an email that can be forwarded easily.9 And, just as importantly, it’s where you incrementally build the rapport and trust that will carry you through this and future negotiations with your counterpart.
In my experience, there are too few calls taking place in today’s dealmaking environment, and no shortage of reasons why: the hassle of scheduling (especially with large groups of reps), the attention/energy-intensive nature of calls (and, worse, video calls), the vibes of working from home, and, for some negotiators, a lack of confidence about what to say (and how it/they will hold up under cross-examination).
But as they say in the military (and medicine, and construction, and countless other intellectual and physical fields of work): slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
That’s not to say that every single counter demands a pre- and/or post-call, or even that most of them do; as usual, the right move is highly deal-specific and context-dependent. You tend to see calls most neglected by more junior negotiators, and again, no shortage of reasons why: lack of confidence (born of inexperience), lack of mentorship and training, and, yes, at the risk of sounding a bit like I’m telling the kids to get off my lawn,10 I find that there is a generational thing in play here. If you feel at all attacked or maligned by that statement, then by all means: go out there and prove me wrong.11
For example, after a stressful day spent playing therapist or punching bag (or both) for difficult personalities, it’s natural to struggle to stop thinking (or talking), incessantly, about today (or tomorrow)’s work. But I can tell you from experience: if you’re stressed out about having discovered that you might have cost your employer hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) by “missing” a tricky issue at work, listening to your doctor wife tell you about declaring a patient’s “time of death” for the first time during her last shift at the hospital is a very effective way to remind yourself what real stakes actually look like.
But this isn’t only about occasionally puncturing your sense of self-importance with a reminder of the true meaning of “life and death” circumstances. For example, a long and exhausting day spent explaining or debating arcane deal terms, often with apparent sociopaths or dullards, largely for the benefit of moguls and probable narcissists, can really suck the sense of glamour and fun right out of your job. But the looks on your non-Hollywood friends’ faces when you spill the tea about several celebrity “nice guys” who are secretly nightmare people? Each one is a much-needed reminder that, in addition to frequently being a giant pain in the ass, working in “show business” can still occasionally be (or at least feel) pretty cool.
Side-note: an additional hypothetical benefit of having a spouse who works in medicine and/or science? The fun-filled hours spent plotting how you could anonymously mail dead mice stolen from your wife’s lab to whoever’s ruining your life this week (and get away with it).
As he was flying home on the Aga Khan’s jet from a round of negotiations with (Iranian President) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Qhesm Island (in the Strait of Hormuz), Tom relayed to (former UN Secretary-General) Kofi Annan that he had just heard from the team in Geneva, via the jet’s satellite phone, that a cease-fire in Syria that he and Annan had (in the words of one of Annan’s other advisors) “imagined … into existence” was going into effect the next morning.
If you’re a publisher who finds this interesting, I’m happy to make an introduction.
Apocryphally attributed to both Will Rogers and Oscar Wilde.
Making the initial offer by phone doesn’t require a point-by-point recitation of every component of the proposal. In many cases, it’s perfectly fine to just introduce the most important “headline” deal points, touch on any points that require additional context or explanation, be prepared to address any specific questions posed by the other side, and follow up with the complete details in your offer email.
Bonus points if you can sincerely add “I’ve heard good things.” Probably talk about the weather, maybe your recent or upcoming travel (work or personal), maybe your kids (this one is still new for me, and it’s a real asset). Try to suss out if you have any mutual friends.
Wait a minute… Yeah, this is going to be another new adage of its own.
For example, I first wrote the word “clearly” here, but replaced it with “unambiguously” because I thought the latter was literally more unambiguous (because “clearly” could also be understood as roughly synonymous with “intelligibly,” and therefore included for emphasis rather than expanded meaning).
Remember: don’t write anything in an email that you wouldn’t want to be questioned about in a deposition later. Or, if you prefer a less lawyerly version of this advice: don’t write anything in an email that you wouldn’t want to be forwarded to your (or the other side’s) boss, client, rivals, or nemeses.
“Risk” feels like the wrong word here, because it suggests something that I care about avoiding. In fact, I am perfectly content to be heard yelling at clouds or complaining about kids today.
Or let me have it in the comments.